1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sightseeing guide system utilizing IVC (Inter Vehicle Communications) in ITS (Intelligent Transport System). The present disclosure relates to subject matter contained in Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-053288 (filed on Feb. 29, 2000), which is expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
2. Description of the Related Art
A type of a conventional sightseeing travel is roughly classified into a group travel and an individual trip. The group travel is that a travel company previously reserves necessary travel facilities such as transport facilities, sightseeing facilities, hotel facilities etc. for a predetermined number of travelers, and the plurality of travel participants utilize those facilities on the same itinerary. The individual trip is that the traveler himself or herself makes the arrangements for the transport facilities and hotel facilities or asks the travel company to make those arrangement and independently takes the sightseeing trip. In the case of the group travel, it is required that each group be accompanied with a tour conductor who guides the plurality of participants on the same itinerary and provides the respective participants with necessary services, such as a guide for sightseeing, making arrangements for packed lunches, giving information in emergency, etc. The individual trip also requires the sightseeing information e. g. in a guide book etc. as a guide for the traveler to take an independent action.
By the way, in the case of the group travel, a variety of services must be provided at any time to the respective participants. Therefore, the participation in the travel with a privately owned car is ruled out, and all the participants must get on a bus arranged by the travel company. For the same reason, if there a plurality of buses used for the group travel taking the same itinerary, a tour conductor must get on every bus.
Tremendous costs and expenditures must be, however, needed for training a prospective tour conductor till he or she is trained well enough to perform a variety of services. Further, even a long-experienced tour conductor also needs a study for acquiring knowledge about a new sightseeing spot when in charge of a group travel to this new sightseeing spot. Accordingly, it is not easy to increase and decrease the number of the tour conductors corresponding to an increase and a decrease in the number of travel participants (i.e., corresponding to an increase and a decrease in the number of the buses). Hence, there might be a case where the tour conductor does not necessarily get on each bus, and a case where no tour conductor, though it is a group travel, accompanies the group. In those cases, the services for the travel participants are not necessarily sufficient.
On the other hand, the tour conductor does not accompany the individual trip in principle, and therefore the traveler is unable to receive the variety of services.
It is, however, predicted that demands for the individual trips will rise with a diversification of the type of the sightseeing travel. Consequently, there arises a necessity for the travel company to provide the same various services as those for the group travel to the individual customer taking the individual trip in accordance with their likings. Further, a local sightseeing association etc at the sightseeing spot will have a possibility of inducing a great number of travelers, if able to introduce the hotel facilities, restaurants, souvenir shops etc in the local area to the travelers taking the individual trips.
It is a primary object of the present invention, which was devised under such circumstances, to provide a sightseeing guide system capable of providing a traveler with necessary services through a terminal device installed in a vehicle on which each traveler gets on by utilizing IVC in ITC.
To accomplish the above object, according to one aspect of the present invention, a sightseeing guide system includes an information source terminal mounted in an information source vehicle, and an information output terminal mounted in a customer vehicle which a customer gets on. The information source terminal has a storage unit stored with information, a first radio communication device, and a control unit for transmitting the information stored in the storage unit towards the information output terminal via the first radio communication device. The information output terminal includes a second radio communication device capable of performing radio communications with the first radio communication device of the information source terminal, an output unit for outputting the information in such a mode that the information is recognizable by the customer, and a control unit for outputting, via the output unit, the information received from the information source terminal via the second radio communication device.
According to the thus constructed sightseeing guide system, even if a tour conductor does not get on a customer vehicle, customers in the customer vehicle are able to access and know the information stored in the storage unit of the information source terminal mounted in the information source vehicle through the radio communications between the first radio communication device of the information source terminal and the second radio communication device of the information output terminal, by use of the output device of the information output terminal which outputs the information visually or in voice.